The necessaries of civilization were luxuries to us and [we] found . . . the luxuries of civilization satisfy only those wants which they themselves create. -- Apsley Cherry-Garrand.
March 24
A hut day. The storm had arrived. Things remained calm until around 1:00 a.m., at which point the wind increased steadily from the northwest and sheets of rain began to pulse against the Hut. At 6:00 a.m. we woke to a full on thunderstorm -- seeing lightning strikes in the early hours. By noon the wind peaked -- causing the Hut to rock ever so slightly -- and rain turned gradually to hail and then to snow, as the temperature dropped. Fortunately the temperature inside stayed tolerable -- maybe 5 degrees C during the day, freezing at night.
There was never any serious talk of climbing though I felt obliged to at least ask, "We can't climb in this, right?" "Not a chance," which I was thankful to hear.
Oddly time passed fairly quickly notwithstanding the fact that the two of us were confined to life in a 20 ft x 20 ft freezer. The day's schedule went something like this:
8:00 a.m.: Breakfast
9:00 a.m.: Discuss avalanche awareness over hot tea.
12:00 p.m.: Read book in sleeping bag
1:00 p.m.: Pace around Hut trying to keep warm
2:00 p.m.: Make toasted sandwiches
3:00 p.m.: Back to sleeping bag; stare at ceiling
5:00 p.m.: Stretch
6:05 p.m.: Highlight of the Day -- i.e., Radio Sched and weather report (which, by the way, suggested tomorrow would be equally terrible)
7:00 p.m.: Make dinner
9:00 p.m.: Back to sleeping bag; read then sleep
This may not sound exciting but it's in fact a much less terrible ordeal than you might imagine. And, in any event, as Paul would have reminded me: "Suffering brings clarity."
The only real conversation of note during the day took place shortly after lunch: "Hey Simon, seeing as how it's Saturday, I'm not sure it's worth bringing up, but my flight out of New Zealand is Wednesday morning. But I'm sure the storm will let up by then, so no need to worry."
March 25
Another hut day (which saw the repeat of almost the exact same schedule from the previous day). Rain/freezing rain/snow (and some wicked combination of all three) continued throughout the night and winds shifted to the southwest. Visibility outside of the hut remained virtually nonexistant and with the heavy snow/wind from the previous day, crevasse and avalanche hazard were increasing by the hour. And, with the southern arctic air now blowing in from the coast, things were bound to get cold.
Seeing as how my flight loomed ominously over our exit (it's not easy to cancel and rebook international flights from a frozen hut that lacks telephone and electricity), we hoped to walk from Pioneer Hut down to Chancellor Hut -- which would likely allow a helicopter pick up during weather that the higher Pioneer Hut would not. That said, we agreed glacier travel within 24 hours of the storm was unwise -- given the terrian hazard -- and, seeing as how the storm had yet to cease, our exit plan was essentially no plan at all.
So, again, we remained idle. The same cannot, however, be said of the temperature, which dropped markedly -- reaching approximately -10 degrees C by evening. (My sleeping bag is rated to -9 degrees).
By now I had about as much clarity as I could take.
March 26
First, despair. Poking my head outside early in the morning I found only wind, snow, cloud, cold. I resorted for the first time to the "Pee Bucket" inside the Hut.
Then hope. The previous evening's forecast suggested more bad weather. But by 7:00 a.m. you could see weakness in the cloud. I stood at the lone east-facing window and peered through the layer of ice that had encased us for days, convinced that I could see sunlight -- or at least patches of cloud that weren't dark grey.
"In an hour the sun is going to be out!"
We got on the Hut radio immediately and placed a call to HeliServices, asking for a pickup as soon as possible. Turns out they were less than convinced by our description of the weather: "Things still look pretty grim down in the valley; but we'll keep you in mind. No flights yet."
I continued to stare and, sure enough, you could see that the clouds were going to break, if only momentarily. We soon heard the distinct thooup-thooup-thooup sound of helicopter blades lower on the mountain and then watched as scenic flights landed on a glacier plateau below.
And then a crackle over the radio: "Hey, a bet I can go grab those guys at Pioneer; cloud is breaking."
It was our chance. We ran to answer the call. "We can be ready in 10 minutes." And, sure enough, 10 minutes and some very frantic packing and cleaning later, we were flying out of our icebox, back to civilization. (I am sure that, in our rush, I left something behind, but I've yet to unpack my climbing bag to find out what.)
Upon returning to the valley we looked up to see the mountains shrouded once more in cloud.
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